Giddy about my new space!

This room has been a wish of mine for a long time.  It's worn different hats.  A boring office, son's room, catch all.  But now it has a purpose.  A reason for being.  A breath of fresh air.  Let's get started, shall we?
I saw this pegboard idea on pinterest recently and that's what kicked the whole thing off.  It just so happens that we had the pegboard hanging in a bedroom and it wasn't being utilized.  Bingo!  So Mr. handy hubby took it down and put it up in here for me.  Then he framed it with some molding left over in the garage and I painted it.  Cost for this pegboard:  nothing

 I'm still finding things to fill it with but so far, I already had everything.  I'm trying to get creative and  repurpose things I already had, like this little decorative latter turned ribbon storage.  I think it's cute. I also got the idea from pinterest to wrap ribbon around craft sticks.  That's what is in the jar in the back.  Good way to store ribbon!  WHAT would we do without pinterest.

Phillip had these wire baskets in the garage with yucky garage things in them.  I can't believe I haven't stolen them before now.  Now they hold my decorative and solid paper.

This little table was made by me in high school and has been a behind the sofa table.  I don't know if it will stay here but for now it's a cute little work space.  I'm on the look out for an old door I can do a little chalkboard painting on and stand up in the corner there for messages and notes.

This dresser came out of Isabelle's room after we moved all her clothes into her closet shelves.  Now it holds alot of paperwork and files and things that are not pretty to look at.

My mom and dad gave me this cute old suitcase for my birthday.  She had notes and letters I had written over the years and some of my baby dresses inside.  It's too cute to not be displayed.  I'm going to keep my camera and any pictures waiting for projects in it.

 Here's the computer station. 

 And shelves above.  They have more decorative than functional items. Sweet sister gave me these oh so cute mason jars.  I found the vintage suitcase last summer with my parents and sister.   I'll have to put those baskets to use.

This is a cabinet I've had for a long time.  It's great for storing baskets of craft supplies.  I'll probably paint it down the road but I'm all painted out from painting these wood shutters.  If you ever want to know the wrong way to paint wood shutters, I'm your girl.  I thought it would be no big deal.  It would have been alot easier to spray paint them but I wanted them in my favorite white (Swiss Coffee) and you can't buy that in spray paint.  So I painted them with a brush.  Let's just say when I get ready to paint the living room shutters I'll be buying a paint sprayer.  Goodness gracious!

These white metal locker baskets were a goodwill find.  They are from pottery barn teen.  I was able to get four of them for $20.  Only one was white and the others were different colors so I spray painted one of them white and Isabelle has the other two in her room.

 

Wire basket with fabric

 My armoire holds gift wrapping supplies and miscellaneous items (stuff).

 I slapped these drop cloths up for curtains when we needed some privacy when this was Logan's room.  I'll most likely be getting some real ones soon.

That's the tour, folks.  I think the only thing I spent on this room was the metal brackets and wood for the shelves.  I already had everything else.  Does that make me a little hoarderish?

Thanks for taking a look at my new space.  I'm not sure what I'm going to call it yet.  Moffice, Studio, Craft room.  Any ideas?

 

linking up to:

 

Feathered Nest Friday

 

Wow Us Wednesdays

 

Beneath My Heart

 

Fabulously Creative Friday

 

 

 

 

 

long hall wall

Well it's only taken me over FOUR years since Amanda graduated and not quite a year since Emily graduated, but I finally got their senior pictures up on the wall.  I took the pictures myself and had them printed at Costco.  I bought a canvas at Savers or Goodwill, I can't remember.  It had an unattractive painting on it, so I spraypainted it black and then placed Emily's pictures where I wanted them and modge podged.  That's it.

For Amanda's I used a painting I already had but didn't really like.  It's one of those that are painted onto a piece of wood or mdf board and no frame.  So I painted it black, placed her pictures on and modge podged.  And wahlah.

 

 

Poor Logan didn't get any senior pics, so I'll have to do a photo session with him sometime.  I reserved a spot on the wall for him.  I don't want to wait six years for Isabelle's, so I'll do the same for her.   I'd like to make one of Phillip and I and another one of some mixed pictures of all of us.  It's alot easier than trying to find individual frames for all those pictures.  And alot cheaper too!

 My hall gallery wall is coming along.

A sneek peek

I've been busy going through stuff at my house.  Organizing, cleaning out, getting rid of, moving around. It's been much overdue.  I thought we were pretty good about not having alot of stuff when we moved 2 1/2 years ago.  Well it's amazing what you can accumulate in that short amount of time.  I feel like I've just been trading stuff with Goodwill.  I buy stuff and then I donate stuff and then I buy more stuff and then I donate stuff.  It's a problem.  I am going to do better this year.  I don't need to bring in more junk in my house.  If the hunt and challenge of finding cool things wasn't so darn addicting!  So if I just pin more stuff and buy less stuff, I won't clutter my house.
Anyway,  I'm really excited about my new office/craft room.  I'm finally getting going on it.  I've wanted it forever and now it's becoming a reality.  It's not done so I can't reveal it but I'll give you a sneak peek:

I also wanted to share a yummy breakfast to keep your energy going while you're doing all that organizing and closet cleaning.

toast a piece of whole wheat bread or bagel.  I like toast because I like the crunch.

fry an egg.  I like the yoke smashed and cooked all the way through, lightly salted and peppered.

after the egg has cooked and is still in the pan, place a wedge of laughing cow light creamy swiss cheese spread and let it get gooey.

cut a few slices of avacado and smash on the toast with a fork.  I like to sprinkle a tiny bit of cayenne pepper and sea salt on it.

place the cooked egg on the avacado toast and spread cheese around on egg.

 I bet it would be good with a tomato too. I used to think my grandma was crazy for eating things like avacado and tomato for breakfast.  Breakfast was supposed to be sugared cereal and pancakes!

Now devour it.  So yummy.  At least I think so.

December Sky

We looked out the window  in the late afternoon and early evening and the backyard looked pink.  We said "Why is the yard pink?"  And then we went outside to have a look and this is what we saw:

Pretty cool.  But instead of the sky looking pink where the sun was setting, it was on the other side of the sky.  Kinda weird.

This one is my favorite

Isn't Mother Nature Awesome?

A little Holiday Cheer

http://www.jibjab.com/view/ZftkHyQyT2ScMnmUsrnMEw

http://www.jibjab.com/view/398u_dd6Qwmt4gVcCAfIWw

http://www.jibjab.com/view/fhogrCW0RHS2Ty0Q882l1Q

These things are so silly, but I love making them!

If Dogs Could Talk.........

What do you think these two would say?

P.S.  Christmas came early for me and I got a brand new camera.  Yay!!!!  I'm back in business.

Christmas in the kitchen

I like adding touches of red in the kitchen.  I think it goes well with the gray granite and stainless steel. 
This is a little vintage vingette in the corner of the counter.  Say that ten times fast!

Red beads strung in front of the kitchen window.

 

Another countertop decoration

I tied red fabric to the backs of the kitchen chairs and placed these trees in a tray on the table.

It all makes for a fun, festive kitchen.

Some Christmas on this Blog

I'm pretty tired of looking at that mermaid every time I get on my blog.  I've got to post something just to be rid of her!  I've been enjoying taking virtual tours of Christmas homes on other blogs, so I thought I'd give a little virtual tour here at Small-N-Simple Things.    So here goes:

 These are items on my kitchen hutch.  I bleached the bottle brush trees, but they're not NEARLY as cute as the ones my mom made, she glittered and glitzed hers.  The ornaments in the bowl came from goodwill and some of them are mercury glass, I really like them.

 Some of my white dishes and silver.

This is something I saw on Pinterest and re-created because I had everything for it.  A wooden box filled with greenery, lights, wooden logs and pine cones.  It sits in front of the fireplace since it's too warm to build a fire.

 

Here it is lit up at night.

This is a tinsel tree I got at a yard sale for $3.  I'm not sure why I bought it, I just liked how it looked old.

This is our actual Christmas Tree.  The one I bought at a second hand store last year for $10 and flocked myself.  It's looking pretty sad.  My girls really wanted to get a real tree but I told them let's give this one more year and we'll get a real one next year.

Here's the old door with a fresh wreath and the BELIEVE garland I made last year.

And the mantle.   Not too different from last year.

So that is a little of my home dressed up for Christmas.  I'll show more later when there is better light for taking pictures.

A lucrative Halloween

I'm going to try and simplify this as much as possible.
Emily wanted to enter the costume contest at work.  She heard there was a cash prize.  She researched and found the costume she wanted to make.  It was this one:

When she showed this to me I thought, wow that looks like alot of work, good thing she has alot of time to do it.  So she bought a few things here and there.  I bought a few things here and there as I found them.   Fast forward to the night of the 30th.  The costume hasn't even begun.  We had a long night ahead of us.  If we were smart we would have looked up the instructions on how to make this and put it together.  But we're not smart.   So we racked our brains and put together what we had and it just wasn't working.  It looked like the pirate was piggy backing on her.  We worked on it until about 11pm when I couldn't see straight anymore, let alone think straight.  So we slept on it and got an early start.  After some more failed ideas, we finally hit upon a winner.  It took some doing but we did it.  She was going to put it on at work when the contest started so I didn't get a picture of her with it on.  I took these before she left for work:
We found as close to skin color shirt as we could and she wore a sea decorated bra over it.

We made the fin and attached it to this basket decorated with treasure.

 This is the fellow who gave us so much trouble.  Pirates!

We recycled the face of this lady from a couple of years ago

 

 

 This is the destruction that I was left to clean up.

 

 

 Because I'm a dork and forgot to send my camera with her, someone took a picture of her at work and sent it to my phone.  Because I don't have a smartphone I can't put pictures from my phone onto my computer.  This is the best I could do.  She wasn't about to put it back on when she got home.

 It looks like the pirate is leaning over her shoulder. But at least he's not way shorter than her and hiding behind her back.  That was the trouble we had with him.

Anyway.  Long story short.  She tied for first place with a guy that looks exactly like those little green army men.  They each got $200!   AND she won the contest for just her office!  $60
I think we probably had about $20 invested in it.

Yes, I'm getting my commission if that's what you were wondering, because it was the first think I thought of.
I don't know how we got into the business of creative costumes, but I'm getting too old for it!